Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Tour De France Live Tracker 2007:The 2007 Tour de France is underway and the Ubilabs Tour de France Live Tracker 2007 is live once again. This Google Maps mashup will let you track the stage that is currently underway, and follow GPS-tracked cyclists that are deep in the race.. in real-time!See their exact location, as well heart rate, cadence, speed and power. Cool team jersey map markers indicate the T-Mobile, Gerolsteiner, Discovery Channel, CSC, Saunier Duval and Liquigasracer cyclists on the map. This mashup even makes use of the Twitter API for constant updates (See Live Ticker)! This is a great way to keep up with the race through a truly interactive Google Maps interface! Hurry to take a good look at this mashup before the Tour wraps up in beautiful Paris on July 29th!

Sunday, July 01, 2007

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is on the map! Residents of and visitors to the UAE can now view streets and roads for major cities such as Dubai and Abu-Dhabi! While map searching isn't yet available there, searching for "User-created content" on Google Maps searching will. For example, center the map on the UAE and enter "Ski Dubai", or other search terms for Dubai to see where users of the geoweb have plotted locations for their content. It's very helpful.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Sterling Udell, creator of the DayLightMap Google Maps tool (which lets you see a world day/night view of the earth) has added a VERY cool new feature.. "Near Real-time" NASA cloud imagery! Take a look:
The images are obtained from NASA and are up to date within the last 6 hours. You can also take a look at the timestamp for the cloud imagery! Pretty nifty! :) Sterling has more info about the imagery on the left side of the page. Be sure to also check out his really amazing "World city lights at night" map which shows a satellite image of the world's city lights taken from space!

..This page features the same YouTube clip with more information and links to read about.

This new Maps viewing experience is much better test driven than being read about so head over to Google Maps (or follow the direct city links above), center the map on the US and click "Street View" up at the top. Choose a city with a camera marker and zoom in to have a play!

Sunday, May 27, 2007

A Magnificent Moscow Metro Mashup: - (Update - these sites no longer work so dead links have been removed)
Boris Vikhanskiy of Russia dropped me a line to inform me of a new bilingual (Russian and English) transit mashup he has created for the Moscow subway system. As far as transit mashups go, this is one of the better I've seen in all ways. For the network itself the mashup has routes, station schemas and exits (more on that in a moment) and public transportation by each station. The UI for the map itself features a tool to measure distance, a way to pass a created path as a link and print/email options. This, among many other features.

My favorite part of this map is that it keeps surprising you as you get further and further down in zoom levels. At first you see the color coded spaghetti polylines going every which way to illustrate the various routes. Zoom down a bit more and stations appear. Even further and text labels appear.. then when you reach zoom levels 1 and 2 the actual schema for the station with each of the stairways and exits is displayed! Take a look:
Be sure to take a look at the bottom of the map to find detailed instructions on how to use every part of Boris Vikhanskiy most awesome Google Maps transit mashup for the city of Moscow, Russia!

More Russian Google Maps Mashups:

Wikimapia - This world famous Google Maps mashup was created by two developers in Moscow

Thursday, May 10, 2007

+ (update - these sites no longer exist so dead links have been removed.

Can't get enough of Facebook? Try something new on Facebook by using these Facebook Google Maps mashups to make your own buddy mapping mashup by plotting your Facebook friends on a map! It takes a few seconds to do and the resulting map shows geographically how near and far your friends really are!

Facebook Friend Mapper - This one is pretty straightforward. Follow the link and login to Facebook. Once you've logged in, friends automatically become mapped for you across a Google Map. The map locations pull from the hometown that your friend has set.

Map Your Buddies - This mashup combines Facebook, Google Maps and Amazon to allow you to map your friends to a Google Map. The Amazon ingredient in this mashup checks out your friend's music interests and suggests a CD from Amazon. Follow the steps at the bottom of the page to get going. This app might expose how few of your friends have music interests set but it does map friends pretty well, especially grouping many in one location.

Facebook UK Friend Plotter - This is a UK specific Facebook friend mapping app that will map where your friends are in the UK. This is great for the UK Facebook crowd, but since I personally hail from Southwestern Ontario, Canada I did expose one flaw in this app. My area of Southern Ontario was settled by the British so all of my Facebook friends are displayed in the locations where these Ontario place names originate in the UK (places like London, Windsor, Blenheim (woo hoo!), Chatham etc..)

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Welcome to Google Maps Mania! If this is your first time here.. Welcome! This is a blog that covers all the cool new Google Maps mashups, tools and applications being created by people all over the world. Posts also cover features and additions to Google Maps itself such new mapping data being added, new features and so on.

In some cases there are enhancements to the road/street maps that were there previously (Greece for example) and for some countries streets and roads are completely new (Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey) This update of streets, roads and other points of interest will have a huge impact on users of Google Maps in these areas. It means that satellite imagery is now more relevant and easier to identify when "sightseeing" using the hybrid map view toggle. In addition, Google's new My Maps map creation tool is now instantly available for millions of people to begin creating and sharing interesting maps for these countries!

Know of other countries seeing updates or want to leave some feedback? Post a comment!:)

[Thanks to Scott Dexter for the tip!]

For other recent feature and functionality updates to Google Maps, click on the "Google Maps" label below:

Monday, February 26, 2007

Here again is another (the 11th) roundup of the latest Google Maps Creation (and Viewing) Tools and Resources. I've assemble these lists over the past few years to help you discover the countless sites created by people on the web to assist you with building your own Google Maps mashup or with diving deeper into the Google Maps API. Check out the bottom of this post to learn why this is a "Mega-Post"!

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Update: CraiglistMap no longer exists - the dead links have been removed from this post.

+=CraigslistMap.info

Wikipedia describes Craigslist as "..a centralized network of online urban communities, featuring free classified advertisements (with jobs, housing, personals, for sale/barter/wanted, services, community, gigs and resumes categories) and forums sorted by various topics." There is a Craigslist community for cities all across the US and around the world. A simple new Google Maps mashup helps you to navigate and learn more about these other Craigslist cities using a Google Maps interface. CraigslistMap.info lets you filter Craigslist communities:

By date started

By country

By those outside the US

Each map pin will let you link off to that city's Craigslist community or Wikipedia article. It's not a particularly complex mashup but does act as a nice alternative geo-navigator to the text list formed in columns on the right side of the Craigslist homepage.

It's important to note that the Google Maps mashup craze was started by Paul Rademacher's Craigslist housing mashup, or hack: HousingMaps. HousingMaps started as the first Google Maps hack (before the API legitimized hacks). Paul now works at Google, and by the way.. so do I. :)

Saturday, February 03, 2007

An announcement on the Nike.com message forums reveals a Google Maps Mashup created by the company for runners called Map It. Here is how it's described:"Map It lets you draw, describe and share routes you run. You can find exactly where to run, wherever you go. And the best part—you can track your progress running the same route over time."

In response to a user question regarding availability outside the US a Nike spokesperson replied:"In beta Map It is limited to US Nike+ runners but will be made available other regions as soon as we can, pending local Google Map availability of course!"

For more information about Map It, read through the announcement thread or this FAQ section.

Nike's entrant in the Google Maps run tracker joins many well established run finders and tools designed to help runners. A few of the most popular include the Google Maps Pedometer and Walk Jog Run.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

It appears Australia now has it's own domain for Google Maps. Google Maps went live with streets, roads and place names back on May 18th, 2006. Google Maps Mania reader Chris Clarke explains the experience prior to today in his email tipping us off on the new domain: "Australia's had its own street directory for a while now, but you've had to type Australia in your search each time."

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Planning a wedding? WeddingMapper.com can help you tackle one of the challenges involved in sending out invitations and getting everyone where they need to be (where the ceremony and reception are, where the airports and hotels are, etc). Wedding Mapper is the creation of a seasoned Google Maps mashup creator, Jared Cosulich who is the developer behind CommunityWalk.com (A do it yourself Google Maps creation tool).

Here is a description of the site from Jared:

Wedding Mapper, powered by CommunityWalk, provides a simple, effective, and tasteful way for couples to map out their weddings. The user can add various markers to an online map -- such as "ceremony," "reception," "hotel," or "airport" -- to show where the locations are in relation to one another and then can supplement the marker with web links, uploaded photos, custom descriptions, etc.

Wedding Mapper is perfect for couples who want an interactive wedding map for their guests. It's easy to share and prints cleanly (both as a complete map view and as a simplified list of all the map markers). It also provides directions from one location to another, which is always helpful for out-of-town guests. You can see a sample wedding map here:

To create your own wedding map simple visit Wedding Mapper ( http://www.weddingmapper.com ), and follow the instructions. It's quick and easy and will save you a lot of time while giving your guests all the information they need to ensure they have a great time at your wedding!

WeddingMapper.com (with an English interface) should work for Canada, US, Japan, New Zealand and Australia, most parts of Europe and parts of Africa. Thanks to Luistxo from Tagzania for correcting this point..